Infinite Loop —

Leopard builds edging ever closer to GM

Some visual polish has been added to the latest developer seed of Leopard, as …

With the October deadline looming, the developer builds of Leopard are getting pumped out at an ever-increasing pace. The latest, which was released by Apple this weekend, also included a series of suggested testing procedures, according to AppleInsider.

For example, Apple will reportedly recommend that developers set custom Time Machine preferences and then back up their system to either an internal partition or external drive. They'll then be asked to test that those backups as if in a real-world scenario -- opening specific applications, such as AddressBook, and attempting to recover specific contacts.

Apple also asked for testers to run through a prescribed set of steps for FileVault and .Mac synching among others.

There were a few changes to the interface in this newest build as well. Chief among these was a reduction in the amount of transparency in the menu bar. As one of the more controversial changes in Leopard, this can likely be viewed as a "good news/bad news" situation. The good news is that it's less transparent, making the menu options more visible (the main complaint). The bad news is that if Apple's tweaking it like this, it's unlikely that the transparency will be user adjustable. Looks like we'll have to continue relying on Many Tricks' Non-Transparent Menu Bar come October.

AppleInsider noted half-a-dozen or so other refinements as well in various System Preference and applications, including the aforementioned new intro movie.